David Cohn (guest / Crane & Company)

My message to the defendants who have been rounded up today is this.

Your winning streak has ended.

Your luck has run out.

Violating the law is a losing proposition and you can bet on that.

Yeah, well, I would...

I wish we were talking about the World Series starting tonight, Ben, but it's not every day you get a gambling sting operation in the NBA.

So FBI Director Kash Patel came out yesterday and stated that this was a nationwide takedown across 11 states, resulting in 30 arrests.

And what I really want people to understand here is these are two separate indictments, but there are three overlapping defendants, so they are related cases.

Let's start with the first indictment,

This is your more typical on-court game fixing.

This is where Miami Heat shooting guard Terry Rozier's name is coming into play.

It's alleged that he was involved in some of that game fixing, notifying gamblers when he would play, when certain players would not play, or even more specifically, removing himself possibly from games after only nine minutes so that his prop bet point total under would hit.

things like that.

And that's going to be very problematic, Ben, moving forward for all sports leagues as legalized gambling has sort of ushered into this space.

The second indictment related, but a separate incident, this is where we get into La Cosa Nostra, Italian Mafia, pretty much every crime family name that you've ever heard in any movie or TV show.

And this is where Chauncey Billups' name and Damon Jones comes into play.

Now, if you're like me, Ben, you remember Chauncey Billups as being one of those pillars of those great Detroit Pistons teams 20 years ago, winning finals MVP.

He's now the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers and apparently was involved with these mafia families in fixing poker games.

So he would lure in

quote unquote fish high stakes rollers where he would be the quote unquote face card because people want to play poker with famous celebrities and famous athletes.

And then they would take their money through rigged shuffle machines, through x-ray tables, pretty much any instrument and gadget that James Bond ever had was being used in this scenario.

And not for nothing, Ben, I think it is humorous that the night before Chauncey Billups' arrest here,

He used the phrase, let the chips fall where they may.

So sort of an apropos idiom there the day before you were arrested for a poker scheme.

I was really interested to hear your take on this because I agree with that point 100%.

One situation, you have a mafia family who's trying to take people's money and they're using famous people to do it.

And it's sort of an isolated incident.

Not that it's not nothing in Chauncey Billups.

Look, all of these guys are facing 20 years in prison, even though they may not be held right now until their court appearance.

Obviously, this is an ongoing investigation.

But I agree with you 100% because gambling is legalized now, and you have incidents like yesterday.

ESPN is reporting on this story, and they have ESPN bets at the bottom of the screen, and that is not going away.

And so, you know, part of me, Ben, you and I have discussed at length the Black Sox scandal and shoeless Joe Jackson.

It was bad enough.

In an era where you weren't getting paid a lot of money, but you had no respect for the game that you were playing or the teammates that you had, it was bad enough then.

But in an era, contemporarily here, where you're getting paid millions and millions of dollars, these players, even if you're just on a roster, you make more than doctors make.

There's absolutely no excuse that you would go out and just throw everything away so that you can win a couple bets.

And it sounds like there were multiple franchises

that were involved in this across these 11 states with these indictments.

I think you will be happy to know that the Boston Celtics, they did not come up in this investigation as far as I'm aware.

100%.

If you look at that money as if it's entertainment, like you're paying to go to a ball game, I agree with you 100% on that.

And look, you're tapping into things that we have these serious conversations here on Craning Company, and we've had them with you, which is there are some times where you have Daily Wire members who don't necessarily have any respect or any tolerance for the concept of gambling.

But I like the analogy that you use with alcohol.

Some people

don't touch alcohol at all.

Some people don't gamble at all.

Some people engage with alcohol use recreationally and don't have a problem.

And then there are some people who cannot be near alcohol and they cannot gamble at all because they have a serious problem.

And we try on a daily basis, reach out to those people and say, hey, this is not for you if you are putting your family in jeopardy.

But the more serious side of this is a player, you know, actually participating in on court game fixing.

And Ben, I just worry.

I just worry that this is not going away.

Obviously, the NFL had a situation two years ago that was much less egregious where you had players simply gambling on other teams.

But because they're all friends and they have inside information on who may play or who may not play, the NFL did crack down on that hard, even though there was no evidence that they were necessarily throwing games or altering their performance at all.

And you saw a situation where Calvin Ridley, for instance, wide receiver,

was suspended for an entire year.

Or Jamison Williams, wide receiver for the Lions, I think was suspended for roughly half a year.

So the NFL came down hard on that.

I think we're going to see more and more instances like this.

I just worry at what point does someone at the executive level get implicated?

Because that's when we're really going to sort of cross the Rubicon there and a sport is really going to be tainted.

Thank you for having me.